Like many teenagers, West Vancouver’s Nick Rutledge doesn’t like being the centre of attention.
That’s why he was so confused when his hockey team at the North Shore Winter Club wanted to put stickers on their equipment to show their support for Nick after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of sinus cancer last October.
“He didn’t really understand the concept of why would people just get a sticker to show support for me,” says his mother Sue. “Are they selling them? What are they doing? How does it work?”
Through that conversation Nick, his family and the club arrived at the idea of having players and teams make donations when they received the stickers with all of the money going to cancer charities selected by Nick.
The club raised more than $5,000 to go to the Children’s Wish Foundation, the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation’s children’s oncology unit and the B.C. Childhood Cancer Parents Association, which financially assists families in B.C. who have children diagnosed with cancer. The charities Nick chose are all meaningful ones for the Rutledge family.
“We see a lot of families with young children at oncology at Children’s,” says Sue. “It’s sad, but it’s often overflowing. It is quite a shocker.”
The campaign has now spread to include the West Vancouver Field Hockey Club – Nick is also an avid field hockey player. The club has been passing out stickers and collecting donations from all of their teams as well as other clubs they’ve met in their travels.
“This is really about making the children and the players aware of this and aware of the need to support a child with cancer, but also to send a message to Nick that we’re all behind him,” says Anne McMullin, a board member for both the WVFHC and Field Hockey Canada. Canadian national team captain Scott Tupper has a sticker on his stick, says McMullin, adding that the players on the team she is coaching jumped at the chance to support Nick.
“Everyone was throwing in their money, whether it was the change they had in their bags or in their wallets – all really very touched when we gave out the stickers. The players are always asking me, ‘How’s Nick, how’s Nick?’ That’s why we did it.”
Those who know Nick won’t be surprised that his thoughts turned to charity when people wanted to show their support for him. Before he was diagnosed he was an active campaigner himself, growing his hair out for a fundraiser and then chopping it all off to donate for wigs. His gesture became acutely personal when his stepbrother’s mother Sally was diagnosed with breast cancer. When Nick shaved his head, his hair was woven into a wig for Sally.
There’s a sad reason why Nick is so passionate about helping people fight cancer at such a young age. Rutledge is a royal name in North Shore field hockey circles. The new turf field at Ambleside Park is named Rutledge Field, in honour of Ross Rutledge, a former national team player who created the WVFHC’s Adanacs high-performance program, which is now one of the top producers of field hockey talent in North America.
“He loved coaching,” Sue says about Ross. “He was an awesome coach. He did clinics all over B.C., he really got field hockey noticed in British Columbia. And through that met a lot of great kids who were phenomenal at hockey.”
Ross Rutledge died of cancer. Nick Rutledge was just two years old when his father passed away.
“The fact that we lost Ross, and now his son is fighting …” says McMullin, her voice breaking. “Now I’m going to get all choked up about it. It’s tough.”
Nick’s diagnosis came after several weeks of dealing with what the family thought was a sinus infection. It didn’t go away, and instead started moving, and so Sue decided to take him to Children’s Hospital. One day later he was in the oncology unit getting tests done, getting his new braces removed, getting a port inserted into his chest. Ten days later chemotherapy and radiation treatment began, and has continued since. When the North Shore News caught up with Nick and Sue last week Nick was just recovering from what the family affectionately calls the ‘big hit,’ a massive dose of chemo that comes about every three weeks, much bigger than the normal weekly shot.
Nick says he’s feeling “good,” and looking forward to getting back to mountain biking, hockey and even school as soon as he can. He hasn’t been able to attend classes during his Grade 8 year so he’s been taking home-school lessons from generous family friends while counting on YouTube mountain bike videos, home renovation shows and Kevin Hart comedy routines to keep him entertained. The family is hoping Nick will be done with chemo by August or September. His motto is “kick cancer’s ass.”
“Nick just wants to be a normal kid, treated like a normal kid,” says Sue, adding that the sticker campaigns from his friends and teammates have helped him along the way. “We are so appreciative for the support we have received from the community. As Nick says, it makes him feel like he is not alone.”
And once he’s kicked cancer’s ass, he wants to make sure that it stays down for good, says Sue. Not just for him, but for everyone.
“He’s all about nobody else having to go through what he’s going through.”
